October 02, 2007

MetroDad on Fandom

See this ticket? That's my 2007 World Series Game 4 ticket for the NY Mets.

But oh snap! The Mets didn't even make the playoffs! Despite having been in first place of the division for most of the season, the Mets suffered a monumental collapse and blew a seven-game lead in the NL East with only 17 games left in the season.

Never in baseball history had a team held first place for so long without finishing first. The Mets were so bad at the end that they didn’t even get the consolation prize of the wild card, thus rendering my World Series tickets completely useless (again!)

It's never easy being a Mets fan. You have to really want it. Mets fans are subjected to a battery of loyalty tests that no other fans in history have to navigate (except perhaps the Cubbies.) Not only are we passionate but we're also a little bit crazy.

The reputation of Mets fans as being tormented souls is legendary. After all, at the end of the day, we're a bunch of hard-core crazy New Yorkers. In fact, we're so enthusiastic that the NYPD actually built a jail underneath Shea Stadium just in case rowdy fans ever get too out of hand (actually, that's not so bad when you consider that the Texas Rangers keep a jail and an electric chair set on "simmer.")

Going back to the Mets' epic downfall, it's hard to quantify exactly how devastating this season ended. In Bill Simmons' "Levels of Losing," he relegates the Mets' collapse to 'The Goose/Maverick Tailspin."

"Cruising happily through the regular season, a potential playoff team suddenly and inexplicably goes into a tailspin, can't bounce out of it and ends up crashing for the season. In "Top Gun," the entire scene lasted for 30 seconds and we immediately moved to a couple of scenes in which Tom Cruise tried to make himself cry on camera but couldn't quite pull it off. In sports, the Goose/Maverick Tailspin could last for two weeks, four weeks, maybe even two months, but as long as it's happening, you feel like your entire world is collapsing. It's like an ongoing stomach punch. And when it finally ends, you spend the rest of your life reliving it every time a TV network shows a montage of the worst collapses in sports history."

Sadly, he's right. Already, every headline related to this Mets team contains the phrase "historic collapse," or "epic fall." The back page of the New York Post blared: "CHOKED TO DEATH." The front page of the Daily News read: "FROM CHAMPS TO CHUMPS."

Look, my friends...I know that, in the grand scheme of things, baseball is only a stupid game played by a bunch of overpaid athletes. And if we look at society as a huge dysfunctional family, then the relationship we have with our favorite athletes probably most closely resembles one between a co-dependent spouse and the abuser. In our minds, despite all we've accomplished as adults, we're still the doe-eyed little boys looking up to the big, old jocks with their shiny varsity jackets.

And so we continue to go to the games and shell out $15 for stale hamburgers. We continue to revel in the victories and cry in the defeats. We live and die with our favorite teams. And, for seven months of every year, every fiber of our emotion becomes dictated by the onfield successes of a bunch of men in polyester tights. Insane, right?

But if you're a true baseball fan, you're a lifer. To be a baseball fan is to have your heart broken. The game is practically designed to break your heart. The depressions of a chilly October always give way to the hope and optimism of Spring. There's always next year.

Go Mets!

"There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit." ~Al Gallagher

"Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona." ~George F. Will

As a Cubs fan, I can entirely relate. If we had any sense at all we'd have switch loyalties sometime in the past 99 years. Instead, every non-Cubs fool is coming up to me and saying, "Think they'll win it?!"

No. No I don't. Because last time I said yes they turned a gorgeous medal-winning dive into a tremendous bellyflop that was so spectacular I took myself into a quiet corner of the kitchen and cried.

As a die-hard Pirates fan, I'm not sure whether it's better to have your favorite team competing for a playoff spot every yearn and falling short OR reconciling yourself with the fact that your home team will always suck.

I am so heartbroken by this that I can't even read any of the analyses of their collapse. Only time will tell if this heartbreak will last as long as or longer than the one from the '01 Subway Series.
Maybe we'll get lucky and next year our heartache will be erased a'la '85 & '86.
I guess since some of my first words were "Shea Stadium" I should expect to be heartbroken often ;)

Hey, those of us in Philadelphia have been waiting 14 years to get into the playoffs, so we feel ya'.

And on a related note, the judge from Eagles Court? Is running for the PA Supreme Court this year. I guess citing guys for pissing behind the seats has really prepared him for deciding the important issues of the day...

See? this is what happens when you dream. You get all postseasonal and doe-eyed and goey at the prospect of a title race. Then the girls in tights that play for your city crush your wet dream like Nurse Ratchet putting the thumb on Billy Bibbett. Collapse on the last day of season = baseball vasectomy. World Series Ring = Baseball Reltney
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=reltney

MD-
I have to admit that I grew up a Yankee fan...my dad grew up in the Bronx, so I had no choice. I always pulled a little for the Mets until "Kid" Carter and the 86ers came along and made me hate them. My college roommate, from Queens, needless to say is a Mets freak. We fought often.
Sunday made my laugh, smile, giggle, and pee may pants a bit.
Sorry dude.
Like you said--maybe next year.

I have those tickets too...in fact we learned that DHL only gives you two chances to sign for them (unlike UPS who gives you 3)...so to add insult to injury we had to drive to the DHL distribution center to get the tickets we will never use.

While baseball makes me sleep, I feel your pain -- I sat through several years of the NY Rangers not making the playoffs, with those useless postseason tickets on my dresser. Sometimes the days just before the season starts (right now!) are the best days, with the excitement of great potential untempered by its subsequent waste.

Case in point, I also support Tottenham Hotspur, which appears to have already blown its offseason hype only two months into the EPL season. But I don't expect my fellow Americans to even know what that means...

i love how your men readers have delurked to show their suppport . . .

sorry about the mets. i'm a cubs fan myself (even though i live in texas) and i know/feel your pain. but there is always next year. (thinking about taking the kids on a baseball stadium tour next summer).

While I'm a huge fan of your blog, a devoted father (Korean-American at that), and feel certain commonalities between your blogged life and my own, I fear we part ways on this one, MD. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Philly, I have lived 32 years in the shadows of a championship era that occurred while I was no more than a chipmunk. For all of my life, i've pleaded with the gods of sport to grant me one championship for my city to experience for myself. Though I understand your P.O.V. and that of others from Chicago, I must tell you all, that Philadelphia holds the distinction of having the longest championship drought for a city with all 4 major sports teams. The same cannot be said for Chicago or New York. People misrepresent Philly sports fans all the time. Noted for their incorrigibility and sometimes vicious demeanor, the Philly sports fan is the bi-product of decades of passionate losing. So while I can identify all too well that emotional response to a gut wrenching collapse, I can't help but state, "welcome to my world" and at the same time say, "It's about damn time." To me, the most perfect justice in baseball -and really all of sports- would have to be represented in the fashion of a Philadelphia vs. Cleveland World Series. For while Philadelphia holds the longest drought without a championship for a city with 4 pro teams, Cleveland holds the longest drought of any city, period. Here's to my prayers being answered and the gods of sport serving up at least one sunny day on this tired and forlorn dog's head of a city.

i won't say it'll be okay because it takes a while for the sting to pass and the bruise to heal. i still can't look at anything from 2004. what a bitter taste that left. that and i almost got into a fight with my best friend's bf that night. not a good time to poke the bruise...

i do understand as a michigan fan and alumna...as well as victim of levels #7 & 8 in consecutive weeks. i wish the first 2 weeks NEVER HAPPENED

as a Mets fan by birth...now a Nationals fan since thier arrival to DC. I was really hoping that both teams would win on Sunday but alas. it wasn't meant to be. The wounds may start to heal after October..unless the Phillies win the World Series.

I feel really badly for the Mets. They choked so badly they ought to consider moving to Boston. Oh, except Boston just won it's first game of the playoffs. Sorry! But we in Beantown know all about choking. Too bad it wasn't the Yankees that choked. Even as the wildcard, I still think they didn't deserve to be in the playoffs.

Take heart, my friend. At least the Mets won more than one game, at least they gave you hope, at least they were well managed, all of which is more than I can say for my cursed fantasy football team which is going down like the Hindenburg.

So how do I get my 19 month old daughter to quit saying "Go Mets" everytime she sees the Mets logo anywhere in the house, or anytime she sees people dressed in any sort of sport uniform? We've tried to get her to say "Go Play Golf, Mets!" but it hasn't caught on yet. [sigh]
What are you going to do with your book of tickets? I'm thinking about burning mine, but the rest of my household wants to hang onto them for sentimental reasons...

Your post is so heartfelt that it almost makes me feel guilty to live outside Philadelphia with a major Phillies fan. I do have to live with him, though, hence the "almost" remark. My condolences anyway.